Members of Clare County Council are to make their third organised trip to Europe in recent years to view an incinerator.
On Thursday, 20 councillors are travelling to the Austrian capital, Vienna, to see at first hand an incinerator operating in the centre of the city.
Council members have visited Germany and Belgium in recent years, also to look at incinerators.
The four-night trip, on which councillors will be accompanied by officials will cost €15,500, which is covered in the council's 2003 budget.The trip is costing €590 a head.
The development of an incinerator is provided for in the Regional Waste Management Plan adopted by Clare, Kerry and Limerick local authorities, although no specific location has been identified.
Cllr Patricia McCarthy, chairperson of the council's Environmental Special Policy Committee, said yesterday: "Technology has advanced and this will be the first time that we will see an incinerator operating in the heart of a city."
Cllr McCarthy said members of the committee last year travelled to Belgium to see an incinerator. "It is important that the full council is now given an opportunity to see how this particular type of incinerator works."
She said she was not convinced of the need to locate an incinerator in every regional waste plan area across the State. "We want to be better informed on the issue. Reduce and re-use are the council's primary aims relating to waste management and we are making progress in those areas, but there will always be a residue so there is a need for one or two incinerators in the country."
However, Ennis Town Council member, Cllr Dónal Ó Béarra (Greens) said it was time alternatives to incineration were considered by Clare County Council. "Waste prevention alternatives need to be put first. Incineration is the second least desirable option. The best practice in waste prevention, the most desirable option, needs to be identified and copied.
"A consumer society will dispose of waste in the easiest way - we have to make the easiest way the best way. As long as waste management is treated as a chore and not a challenge we will have incinerators being promoted as a solution. The infrastructure to succeed is not being put in place."
The councillors' trip comes against the background of the EU Landfill Directive adopted in 1999, which stated that by the year 2006 the quantity of biodegradable wastes to be diverted from landfill must be reduced to 75 per cent of the total amount of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995.
The councillors listed to go on the trip yesterday were chairman, Richard Nagle (FF), Pat Daly (FF), Peter Considine (FF), Bernard Hanrahan (FF), P.J. Kelly (FF), Pat Keane (FF), Michael Begley (FF), Pat O'Gorman (FF), Flan Garvey (FF), Pat McMahon (FF), Tommy Brennan (Ind), Tony McMahon (FF), Joe Arkins (FG), Madeleine Taylor-Quinn (FG), John Crowe (FG), Martin Lafferty (Ind), Patricia McCarthy (Ind), James Breen TD (Ind), Pat Breen TD (FG) and Tom Prendeville (FF).
